Girl shows much more skin than her pre- decessor did. Bree is lying on her belly, in a strapless whipped-cream bikini, with not a splotch of cream (or a retouched pixel) out of place. Dolores, by contrast, looked as though she had emerged from a cream-pie fight-stray flecks everywhere. Even the whipped cream on Bree's index finger has been heavily styled; it resem- bles an impaled Martini olive. She reveals more, yet suggests less. Alpert, who had to be talked into doing the remix, is fond of the new cover. "The girl is beautiful," he said. "I think it's a little more accessible. There's so much product in the stores these days that it doesn't hurt if your eye goes to something that has a little eye appeal." Eye appeal, however, is near the top of Alpert's list of deleterious trends in ;< i Herb Alpert popular music. "A lot of it is so corny," he said. "It looks like professional wrestling to me. These people dress up in their getups." He blames television: "People started listening with their eyes." Another thing that bothers him is the tendency toward profligacy; he laments the scarcity of restraint and feeling, in jazz playing, at least, if not in edible-outfit de- sign. (Just as there can be too much flesh, there can be too many notes.) 'When Bill Clinton was inaugurated," Alpert said, "they had ten saxophone players at the party. It was mosdy the young guns, but Gerry Mulligan was in there, too. Af- terward, he called me and said, 'Man, you know, these young guys, they know all the modes, they know all the chords, they can play high and low and fast, and they can do amazing things, but the one thing they don't know how to do is leave the bone alone.' " -Nick Paumgarten THE PICTURES LAST LOOK T he other day, several men-a director, a screenwriter, a cinematographer, an editor, a type of technician called a color timer, and two producers-gathered in a screening room on an upper floor of a building in the West Fifties. The room had black walls, a reddish-brown carpet, and a movie screen the size of a very large bedsheet. Ido Mizrahy, the director of the :film "Things That Hang from Trees," which was about to be shown at both Lin- coln Center and the Museum of Modern Art, in the New Directors/New Films se- ries, had reserved the room in order to see his :film one last time before delivering it to MOMA. Mizrahy, who is twenty-four, is tall and slim, with black hair, olive skin, and clear, dark eyes. He was a child actor in Israel, and, along with stage and televi- sion work, he dubbed Hebrew for Disney . h " p P " H mOVIes suc as eter an. e came to New York six years ago. The movie portrays the life of an eight- year-old boy in Florida, in 1969. He lives with his mother, who owns a lingerie store; she models in the store's front win- dow. He is harassed by a bully and also by his father, a drifter. He is nearly mute in the face of his suffering, and only after a tragedy finds shelter. All the men in the room had ideas about other actors who might have been cast, about shots that might have been handled differently, about scenes that might be shed, but it was too late to change anything about them. The purpose of the screening was to verify that all the scenes were in focus and that there were no flaws or scratches in the print. After the lights came up, the men gath- ered in groups, some of which dissolved and formed again. Their conversations overlapped, and they decided that one more print should be made, to correct a handful of flaws, before it went to MOMA. "Every single time, it's different," Miz- rahy said. "The top of the frame. . ." one of the producers said. "In the lower left-hand corner?" an- other asked. The color timer would be making the new print. He shrugged and said, "By tomorrow afternoon, it shouldn't be a problem." "What about the left side of the frame?" someone asked. "A squiggly white line," Mizrahy said. "In the lingerie shot," a producer said. 'Where it's the cameràs point of view." " I ' h " . d t s set t at way, someone sai . "It's set that way?" the producer said. "0. K." "The main thing is the weird focus," someone said. 'We're not sure if it's hap- pening just here, or when it was shot." "I t' s projector problem," said the cin- ematographer, who is Croatian. "But what about the vibration-is that normal?" "I think the white is so bright that it's causing the vibration," the cinematogra- pher said. "On bigger screen will be less." He went on, "I thought the skin tone b " was etter. " Th bal . " e ance was more consIstent, Mizrahy said. "Originally, we were try- ing to make it look waxy, like a wax mu- seum, but when everything went warmer they looked too healthy." "You don't think it's too yellow?" some- one asked. 'Which scene?" "Back of the truck." "It's more white than green, but there's still too much yellow." " M b " ay e too orange. A woman entered the room carrying a tray with a coffeepot and cups. She placed the tray on a table and left. "My child is not as perfect as I wanted her to be," someone said. ''You're just obsessing." ''Yeah, yeah, no, I know." One of the producers poured him- self coffee. "Are we going to have an- other conversation?" he asked. He looked around. "Or no, this is it," he continued. " B h . " ecause t IS room costs money. " H h ",\" ow muc money!' " I d ' kn " h . d ont ow, e sai . "Are you happy?" someone asked. -Alec Wilkinson THE NEW YORK.ER, APRIL 10, 2006 33